Military

U.S. Troops Start Major Attacks on Shiite Insurgents in 2 Cities

By EDWARD WONG

Published: May 6, 2004

KARBALA, Iraq, Thursday, May 6 — The American military has begun its first major assault against Shiite insurgents, striking at their enclaves here and in Diwaniya in an effort to regain control in southern Iraq.

The coordinated attacks began hours after powerful Shiite politicians and religious leaders met in Baghdad on Tuesday to urge a rebellious young cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, to withdraw his militia from here and from Najaf, both important religious sites for Shiites. Mr. Sadr's followers have taken up positions in mosques in the cities, stockpiling weapons and daring the Americans to come after them.

The operation began at 11 p.m. on Tuesday and took place in two waves. The first assault began late Tuesday here and in Diwaniya, and ended at dawn on Wednesday.

The second unfolded just after midnight Thursday in this city, when more than 450 soldiers in armored vehicles rumbled into a neighborhood amusement park where Mr. Sadr's militiamen, known as the Mahdi Army, were storing heavy weapons near a ferris wheel and bumper car ride.

At 12:30 a.m., soldiers were drawn into an intense firefight, killing an Iraqi who had been lobbing grenades from the area of the pirate ship ride. The man was carrying identification showing he worked for an American-trained security force, the Facilities Protection Service.

Soldiers killed at least 10 Iraqi fighters and captured 20 people in the first attack in Karbala, said Lt. Col. Gary Bishop of the First Armored Division. An American soldier was killed when two insurgents driving a dump truck ran a checkpoint and rammed into his Humvee.

Members of the Mahdi Army set off roadside bombs and fired rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47's at the American convoy as it inched down a half-mile stretch of road through the heart of a rebel neighborhood hereearly Wednesday. Red tracer rounds arced through the sky, and the Americans returned fire down narrow alleys and raided buildings. Explosions echoed across the city.

At one point, an Iraqi man crawled from a bunker waving a white flag, followed by several others. An Apache helicopter then launched 30-millimeter rounds at the bunker, and an Abrams tank incinerated it with a shot from its main cannon.

"Hopefully we can put enough pressure on them to break their will to stay in Karbala," said Brig. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, who flew down from Baghdad to observe the battle.

For weeks, as fighting raged in the Sunni city of Falluja, more than 2,500 American soldiers surrounded Najaf, just 40 miles south of here, where Mr. Sadr is based. But the soldiers were held outside the city for fear of inflaming Shiites in Iraq and around the world and alienating the senior clerics of Najaf. American officials are hoping the clerics — who on Tuesday also repeated their warnings for United States troops to stay out of Najaf and Karbala — will persuade Mr. Sadr to stand down.

But now the military has moved on Karbala, though commanders say they are trying to make precise attacks. Shiites make up at least 60 percent of the population of Iraq; many make pilgrimages to the golden-domed Shrine of Hussein and Shrine of Abbas in its crowded downtown area. Karbala was founded on the site where Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and 72 of his followers were slain in battle by Sunni Muslim warriors in the seventh century, sealing the rift between the Sunni and Shiite sects.

In early March, suicide bombers blew themselves up around the Shiite shrines here and in Baghdad during a Shiite festival, killing nearly 200.

The assault on Wednesday morning took place southwest of the shrines. Town leaders did not protest, and dozens of families stood outside their homes watching the convoy as it rolled toward battle.

Col. Peter Mansoor of the First Armored Division, which moved into this region from Baghdad after its tour was extended, said city leaders met with American officers on Sunday and "made it very clear they don't want this to look like Falluja."

Before the recent operation here began, American commanders estimated there were 200 to 500 members of Mr. Sadr's militia in Karbala and 300 to 400 in Diwaniya. There are between 1,000 and 2,000 Mahdi fighters in Najaf and the nearby town of Kufa, though it is unclear how many of those are dedicated fighters, General Hertling said.

American commanders said the strikes in Karbala and Diwaniya were intended to rout the Mahdi Army from cities near Najaf and isolate Mr. Sadr.

The unit leading assaults here, the First Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment of the First Armored Division, arrived last Saturday in Camp Lima, about five miles east of the city center. The camp has been housing Polish, Bulgarian and Thai soldiers, and the American soldiers are officially acting under the command of a Polish general.

On Tuesday afternoon in Camp Lima, commanders briefed their soldiers on the battle ahead in makeshift white tents, running through various scenarios with markers on the ground indicating the placements of roads and buildings.

They had decided to first attack a neighborhood southwest of the two shrines that was abandoned by Iraqi security forces when the Mahdi Army arrived last month. They said three buildings were believed to be strongholds for the insurgency.

The first tanks rolled out of Camp Lima at 11 p.m. Tuesday and drew fire from the Mahdi Army after arriving in the neighborhood at midnight. A roadside bomb and a rocket-propelled grenade exploded at the front of the second armored vehicle. Soldiers fired back down an alleyway with tracer rounds from M-16's and powerful 25-millimeter rounds from a Bradley fighting vehicle.

When soldiers raided the former Baath Party headquarters and old governorate offices, they discovered that the buildings were wired to explode. A tank fired at the governorate building, setting off such a spectacular inferno that officers said the place must have been an ammunition dump.

"They think if they keep shooting at us, we'll leave," said Lt. Josey Sandoval, 24, the gunner in an M-113 armored personnel carrier. "They should know it's just the opposite. If they stop shooting, then we'll leave."

Deadly Car-Bombing in Baghdad

A suicide car-bomb exploded Thursday morning in a line of vehicles at an American checkpoint on a bridge that leads to the compound that houses many of the American administrators in Iraq.

The bomb went off at about 7:20 a.m., killing at least six Iraqi civilians and wounding three American soldiers, two of them seriously, a senior American military official said. The Iraqis killed were in or near vehicles waiting in line, the official and witnesses said. The bomber was also killed.

"I arrived a block away from the checkpoint by taxi, and suddenly there was a huge explosion," said Basil Zachariah, an Iraqi translator for the occupation administrators. People screamed and ran away."